The present invention relates generally to the field of software and more particularly to software portlets and more particularly to user interfaces for software portlets that constitute a portal.
In graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture where a user selects a virtual object by “grabbing” it (that is, selecting it) and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. “Drag and drop” can be used to invoke many kinds of actions, or create various types of associations between two abstract objects.
An IDE (integrated development environment or interactive development environment) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for end-to-end software development. An IDE normally consists of a source code editor, build automation tools, and a debugger. Some IDEs contain a compiler, interpreter, or both. IDEs are designed to maximize programmer productivity by providing tight-knit components with similar user interfaces. IDEs present a single program in which all software development lifecycle phases are done. As such they also provide integration with the server on which the software to be developed is finally deployed and published. This program typically provides many features for authoring, modifying, compiling, deploying, and debugging software. There are two types of IDEs: (i) desktop-based; and (ii) browser-based. A browser based IDE allows users to edit code in the browser, and see the results of executing the code. Desktop based IDE have been around for a while and are still preferred for doing heavy-lifting and conventional software development.
An “internal IDE browser” (not to be confused with a browser-based IDE) is a popular and integral component of desktop based stand-alone IDE. Because internal IDE browsers are usually run on development machines, the target servers to which software has to be published or deployed are usually on different machines altogether. Thus, this internal IDE browser is a window to that server, on the same or a different machine. All deploy and publish actions are visualized within the IDE using this internal IDE browser. Browser-based IDE do not have, or need, internal IDE browsers, and are not analogous to “stand-alone” IDE with respect to any browser features they may have.
A portal is a specially-designed web page which brings information together from diverse sources in a uniform way. Each information source gets its dedicated area on the page, with each dedicated area being called a “portlet.” Portlets are usually “pluggable,” meaning that they can be inserted into the larger portal by a user, system designer and/or template designer. In some portals, a user can configure the portlets. Some types of portals include: (i) web application hybrids; and (ii) intranet “dashboards” for executives and managers. The degree of uniformity of the display of the content may vary from user to user, or from portal to portal. Sometimes design emphasis is on a certain “metaphor” for configuring and customizing the presentation of the content and the chosen implementation framework and/or code libraries. Portals can provide a consistent look and feel, with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, as contrasted with the relatively haphazard presentation that can result from a user's use of different web entities at various URLs (uniform resource locators). Portlet standards are intended to enable software developers to create portlets that can be plugged into any portal supporting the standards.